


The Worst Mistake

by CatWingsAthena



Category: Leverage
Genre: Brief Panic, Broken Bones, But he's doing a less-than-awesome job, Child Neglect, Complicated parental figure Archie Leach, Gen, Prompt no. 1 - let's hang out sometime, Whumptober 2020, he's trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26756446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatWingsAthena/pseuds/CatWingsAthena
Summary: While in training with Archie, pre-series Parker screws up.Archie's reaction is not what she expected.
Relationships: Archie Leach & Parker (Leverage)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Worst Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> So... much as I love Leverage, it is not the fandom I usually write for. But what can I say, I saw this prompt and inspiration struck. I hope you enjoy the results.

Parker stood by her apparatus, secured her harness, double-checked that the line was secure and untangled, ran to the edge of the roof, and jumped into thin air.

She loved this part. The rush, the wind past her face.

It made her feel free.

She started to put on the brakes.

A sudden, painful  _ jolt,  _ and the feeling came to an abrupt end.

Parker looked down. Thirty feet to the ground, give or take. That meant she was about ten feet above where she should be.

She’d done something wrong. She must’ve.

Right now, she was too busy trying to breathe to figure out what.

The feeling of freedom had changed to one of constriction, her harness was keeping her prisoner...

Archie’s voice echoed in Parker’s head.

_ Never panic. If you panic, you’re as good as caught. You need your wits about you at all times. _

Parker took a deep breath.  _ Calm. Stay calm. _

She was trying to access a window on the second floor of a tall building. Normally, for a window that low she would have just scaled it, but Archie thought she needed more practice with aerial approach.

So here she was.

Dangling outside the  _ third _ floor window.

Based on what she could see from looking in, this was someone’s office.

Someone who was sitting at her desk, parallel to Parker...

Someone who could look over at  _ any moment... _

Moving as slowly as she could, Parker fidgeted with her rigging, trying to diagnose the problem. It seemed like the rope had caught on something, or gotten tangled up. It had happened as soon as she’d tried to apply her braking mechanism, so something must’ve gone wrong with her friction calculations...

The woman in the office looked out the window.

Her eyes went wide, and she got up from her desk and left Parker’s line of sight.

_ Shit. _

They were going to  _ find _ her, she was going to get  _ caught _ and they were going to lock her up and she’d be  _ stuck, _ nowhere to run...

Parker thrashed, going from a serious attempt to shift the tangled rigging to simple terror. She couldn’t  _ move, _ they were going to get her and she couldn’t  _ move... _

_ Don’t panic. If you don’t want that to happen, you have to think. Deep breaths. _

Parker took a deep breath, then another.

She considered her options.

If she hadn’t been spotted, she could’ve climbed the rigging back up to the roof. But now that she had, there would almost certainly be guards there. That was out.

Parker looked to her left and right, but didn’t see any fire escapes or easy handholds she could reach by swinging. If she hadn’t been attached to a rope, there was a spot a few feet to her right where she could’ve climbed down, but she didn’t think she could hold onto it and cut her rope at the same time.

That left her with one way out. Down.

Parker looked at the thirty-foot drop again.

It was survivable. She’d almost certainly break bones, but that was better than what would happen if she didn’t do this. She just had to make sure she broke the  _ right _ bones—not her skull, obviously, and not her legs. She needed to be able to run away.

She’d have to do this just right. But she knew she could.

(At least, she thought she could.)

Parker took another breath, pulled out her pocketknife, and began sawing through the rope.

She didn’t let herself hesitate when she got down to the last few threads, despite the fear that was starting to build within her. Not a fear of falling, nor of pain, nor even of death, but of doing this wrong. Of lying broken on the pavement until they came for her.

The last fibers snapped.

The fall lasted less time than Parker had thought it would, but it was enough. She landed in a tuck-and-roll, pain shooting through her as something in her shoulder snapped.

She didn’t waste energy on keeping quiet. They already knew she was here.

She cried out as she rolled up to her feet and immediately took off running.

Every step jarred her shoulder and made her want to scream, made her want to  _ stop, _ but she didn’t.

Soon, the shouts of the guards behind her faded to nothing.

...

Parker left the emergency room with a brace on her shoulder, a sling on her arm, a bag with PT instructions and extra-strength NSAID painkillers in her hand, and a few hundred fewer dollars in her pocket (Archie had given her a short stack of hundreds before dropping her off at the ER with a fake ID that said she was 18, advice on cover stories, and a burner phone to text him with when she got out).

Once she was a suitable distance from the hospital, Parker texted Archie with her location, and soon he was pulling up.

Parker opened the car door and slowly got in.

“Well?” asked Archie. “What’d they say?”

“Fractured clavicle,” said Parker. “I’m supposed to keep it immobilized for a few days, then go back to using it slowly. I’ve got the instructions here.”

“Okay,” said Archie. “You’d better follow those, okay? Broken clavicles are serious business. Last thing you want is to screw up your shoulder for good.”

“Yes, sir,” Parker replied.

“What happened, kiddo?” Archie looked over. “Job go bad?”

Parker looked down. “Something went wrong with my rigging, I don’t know what, I’m pretty sure I did all the math right... but as soon as I tried to put on the brake it just  _ stopped. _ And someone saw me, and I couldn’t climb back up, so... I had to cut the rope to get away.”

“Good job,” said Archie. “That was good thinking."

Parker looked up, surprised. "You're not mad at me?"

"Of course not. You made a mistake, happens to everyone. Do you know where you might’ve gone wrong?”

Parker blinked. "But..."

"Just tell me where you went wrong."

Parker's forehead wrinkled. “I... I don't know, I'm _sure_ I did the math right...”

“What about the things that aren’t the math? Did anything change between this time and last time?”

_ Of course. _ “I was using a different material,” Parker said. “For the rope. The coefficient of friction must’ve been higher, and I forgot to take that into...”  _ Hang on a minute. _ Archie’s question had been too specific to be general brainstorming. “You knew?”

Archie slowly nodded. “I knew when we went over the math that you’d forgotten. If your mistake had been in the other direction, if the friction coefficient had been  _ lower, _ I would’ve told you. But this wasn’t gonna kill you. It was just gonna teach you to be more careful. And that was a lesson you needed to learn on your own. If I’d just told you, you might’ve forgotten. This way, it’s gonna stick. And that could save your life someday.”

Parker lowered her head. Archie was right, of course. But it still hurt. In more ways than one.

Archie gently put a hand under her chin and lifted her head. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” he said. “And I wish the world were a kinder place. But it’s not, and there’s no point denying that. I just want you to be ready, for when you don’t have me anymore. Someday you’ll be on your own, and I want to know that you’ll be ready to get yourself out of any situation you find yourself in. So make your mistakes now, while you can.”

Parker frowned. “What do you mean? I thought I wasn’t supposed to make mistakes.”

Archie shook his head. “No, no. Mistakes are part of learning. Like I said, everyone makes them. You know, the worst mistake is never making any. Then you’d never learn anything.”

“So... you  _ want _ me to screw up?”

“I want you to make mistakes sometimes,” Archie said. “The goal is to make them as early as possible, and not to make the same ones twice.”

Parker nodded. “I think I can do that.”

Archie smiled. “Good. Wanna show me those instructions?”

Parker fished them out of the bag with her good arm and held them out.

Archie hummed as he looked them over. Then, he looked up at Parker.

“This seems manageable,” he said. “What do you think?”

“Yeah,” said Parker. “I can handle it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, I'd love it if you could let me know below!


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